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Comment by kogus | Hacker News Reader

I like and respect Bernie Sanders a lot, but I can't help but feel that he's deliberately interpreting Trump's victory in a way that vindicates his own beliefs.

I somehow manage to be both amused and disgusted as I watch the media contort itself trying to explain Trump supporters as idiot racist protest voters. Their heads simply cannot contain the idea that many of his ideas have legitimate affirmative support among a near-majority of clear minded individuals.

Occam's razor is helpful here; people voted for Trump because they supported Trump. As a country we kind of have to get over that.

Large parts of the country want to take a dramatically different direction on economic issues from immigration to trade policy, and they voted for the candidate that represented their wishes.

For the record, I think both candidates were catastrophes waiting to happen (albeit in different ways). I voted libertarian.

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There is substantial evidence that a lot of people voted for Trump because they did not like Clinton. If Clinton was a popular candidate I don't see a path to Trump winning, but she was a historically unpopular candidate, only Trump had a less favorable approval rating of any other presidential candidates since approval rating has been measured.

Is there any evidence that Sanders gained so much support for the same reason, that people didn't like Clinton?

At the beginning of the race, I assumed Sanders would be like the "RON PAUL 2008" campaign, with a small but vocal group of supporters. I did not think a self-described socialist would be viable in a general election. (Remember how Obama was called a "soshulist"?)

Suppose DNC didn't pick the favorite, and there was a mainstream alternative to Clinton with a favorable approval rating (e.g. Biden). Would Sanders still have garnered this much support?

Had Sanders been the nominee, I would have voted for him: not for his leftist stances but because he seemed like he could be trusted with not running the country into the ground. I stayed home this election.

Bernie Sanders currently has the highest approval rating of any member of congress. He's by all rights the most popular member of the entire American government. People respect him from the left and right. I know many republicans who would vote for him. I all green party votes would've gone to Bernie (Jill said herself if he won the green party wouldn't throw a candidate in the race).

Many votes for the Libertarian party would've also gone to Bernie Sanders. Then a lot of the Trump supporters are actually bernie supporters who feel like the DNC betrayed us by sabotaging the whole thing.. There's a LOT of hate and anger in the democratic party right now.

On facebook I see a shitstorm of anger from Clinton supporters against Bernie supporters blaming US for her loss as if WE are responsible for her being a shitty politician. As if it's not HER responsibility to WIN our votes and CONVINCE us she's the best candidate. She obviously couldn't do that.

So, yes Bernie definitely had a good chance of winning. He also was polling about 10 points above Clinton against Trump in most states. He also won Michigan AND Wisconsin which Trump carried.

You say: "only Trump had a less favorable approval rating"... so how is it that the "horrible" option stole votes from the merely "bad" option? If anything, it should have been the other way around, no?

True, but Trump was the Change candidate according to exit polls, while Clinton was the establishment candidate: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/11/10/th...

Trump got the same votes as Romney.

He shares approximately zero ideas with Romney.

Evangelicals voted for Trump, who has kids with 3 different women and cheated on all 3, because Republican. Free-trade libertarians voted Trump, the least free-trade candidate since the 1930s, because Republican. The only #NeverTrumpers who stuck to their guns were a couple dozen foreign policy experts, who's neocon base still voted Trump, because Republican.

Maaaaaaybe 1% of the voters were people who would have otherwise not voted or voted D because they were attracted by Trump's ideas. The rest of the election swings on anti-Clinton sentiment/propaganda and her inability to counter it -- depressing her own turnout and energizing unenthusiastic Trump voters.

And this is why the Republican's keep winning. Because they keep turning out for the team regardless of who the players are. They have long realized that it is better to be in power when squabbling with each other than out in the cold pointing fingers.

See also The British Conservative Party.

They know they will get a stable base from the older generation that will turn out to the polls, and the only way to beat that is to turn a higher percentage (over 55% of eligible voters) out to the polls.

Yeah, she didn't get the 10 million Obama voters from 2008 to get out and vote, that was Hillary's big failure.

Some of which, at least, were suppressed by Republican states after the hobbling of the Voting Rights Act. Less "Hillary's big failure" and "Superb long game from the Republicans".

When we talk about immigration, we're really talking about jobs. Yes, there are other aspects as well, but U.S. history is filled with conflict over new waves of immigrants encountering fierce resistance from prior waves of immigrants (see Howard Zinn's "The People's History of the United States", et al).

That's why Trump ultimately won, because he played to people's fears about jobs, as well as profiting from decades of manufactured hate against Clinton. I have many issues with the Clintons but when I encounter people that hate Hillary they almost explode with hate and then cite Fox News talking points (that are usually lies).

Definitely, playing to peoples fears and using that to get airtime were Trump's smartest moves.

Also, Howard Zinn's "The People's History of the United States" is a totally worthwhile book to read, it provides a great foundation in the history of America.

It was the same in the UK. Labour (left wing party) lost the election big time. Despite the obvious swing to the right they decided that the problem was that they were insufficiently left wing and ended up with Corbyn, who is the Bernie Sanders of the UK.

That's over simplifying a bit, "they" in this case was a flood of new party members who weren't previously involved, but could be similar.

I was going to vote Trump because I'd rather see the DNC burn for what it did to Bernie. In the end I wrote in Bernie Sanders which was my way of voting for Trump but still supporting Bernie and keeping my conscience in tact. -- My own personal echo chamber of 3k+ BErnie Sanders supporting friends that I added on Facebook I'd say maybe 35% voted for Trump as a protest vote. Another 35% voted for Jill Stein or Gary Johnson or wrote Bernie in...

Clinton was never going to win without the full support of those who'd pledged 'Bernie or Bust' or 'Never Hillary' -- we were DIEHARD serious that we would not let our party..be controlled by Wall Street any longer. I'm one of hundreds of thousands who no longer are members of the Democratic party. I'm a registered Independent now, and will luckily in my state I can vote in the Dem. primary without being a reg. democrat (Utah).

> we were DIEHARD serious that we would not let our party..be controlled by Wall Street any longer.

Congrats, you've handed the entire country to Wall Street instead with the coming deregulation.

Comrade, thanks for not actually voting Trump, but those of us whom the alt-right wants to exterminate are really not enjoying the prospect of having to mount an anti-fascist resistance with the weakest radical Left in decades.

>I can't help but feel that he's deliberately interpreting Trump's victory in a way that vindicates his own beliefs.

Agreed, 100%. It's just as easy to turn it around.

I do find it hard to believe that someone who wasn't a democrat before the election, and who is no longer a democrat should be asserting the direction of the democratic party.

It will be interesting to see how the DNC responds in the next election cycle - whether two years is enough time to recover or not. My take is that leadership has taken enough hits that it won't be plausible to make trump a lame duck at the midterm - not without the first two years being full of controversy.

You voted for an open borders, no Non-agression Principle libertarian who does not, actually, hold libertarian views?

I share your reservations about Johnson. He's not a "real" libertarian. Indeed, the LP itself has softened the platform far too much for my taste. But he was the best option I had on the ballot, so I chose him.

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